Wildly fluctuating refresh rates (1.6.7, Nvidia, Vulkan esp.)

This is on Win10 16299. I somewhat recently upgraded from an AMD R9 270X to a Nvidia 1080.

With the AMD card and OGL output, estimated refresh rates were generally stable at around 59.950 and everything was smooth and running fine. Using Vulkan output, I’d get audio dropouts and judder as the estimated refresh rates drifted downwards over time, but using high performance power profile in Windows to lock the CPU speed fixed that so everything would run smoothly using Vulkan, too.

Now, with the 1080, refresh rates are all over the place. Just as a point of comparison, madVR (which outputs via D3D11) estimates the actual refresh rate to be at a very stable 59.94942 to 59.94948, so very little drift there.

With RA and OGL, in the menu, I get an estimate of around 59.900, very slowly drifting down over time. Actually running a core (generally beetle in my case), the estimates start fluctuating and it goes down to around 58.4 to 58.8.

Vulkan is even worse, starts at around 59.800 in the menu, and when running a core can go below 58 even. End result is frequent audio drop outs and judder. Bringing up the XMB while running a core is even worse, lots of judder, and the refresh rate estimation starts at around 40hz climbing back upwards again.

Fullscreen or windowed fullscreen makes very little difference.

At this point, I don’t really know what else to try, since this a topic I have very little knowledge of, and so I can only describe what’s happening in these basic terms. If you need me try anything else, I’m happy to test it out. I’d appreciate any help, because right now it’s unplayable for me.

Here’s what the log says when opening RA, booting up Suikoden II with beetle in sw rendering mode and letting it run through the opening FMV.

With openGL as output driver:

[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 59.952038 Hz. (19.027 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples). 
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 69.18 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 6.58 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 0.00 %. Close to blocking: 36.92 %.
[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 59.952038 Hz. (19.027 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 69.18 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 6.58 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 0.00 %. Close to blocking: 36.92 %.

With Vulkan:

[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 58.716458 Hz. (15.030 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 27.62 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 11.47 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 55.50 %. Close to blocking: 0.00 %.
[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 58.716458 Hz. (15.030 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 27.62 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 11.47 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 55.50 %. Close to blocking: 0.00 %.

Another Vulkan, this time just running around in SaGa Frontier (my go-to game for checking smoothness, since it runs at 60fps with fast, smooth scrolling):

[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 58.353271 Hz. (15.716 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 30.15 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 15.03 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 51.43 %. Close to blocking: 0.90 %.
[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 58.353271 Hz. (15.716 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 30.15 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 15.03 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 51.43 %. Close to blocking: 0.90 %.

Edit: One last Vulkan one, let the Suikoden II opening loop while I went out with the dog, came back to this:

[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 57.002793 Hz. (189.390 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 39.02 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 14.17 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 24.42 %. Close to blocking: 0.15 %.
[INFO] [Video]: Average monitor Hz: 57.002793 Hz. (189.390 % frame time deviation, based on 2048 last samples).
[INFO] [Audio]: Average audio buffer saturation: 39.02 %, standard deviation (percentage points): 14.17 %.
[INFO] [Audio]: Amount of time spent close to underrun: 24.42 %. Close to blocking: 0.15 %.

Happy to test anything else or provide any info you want. I already tried to replicate it using Linux, but RA keeps crashing when trying to use Vulkan and installing the proprietary nvidia drivers was enough of a pain in the ass as is, so I gave up on that for now.

Last bump before I give up on this. Still an issue with latest nightly. Does no one have any insight where to look for causes?

Hmm, I would make sure your nvidia driver control panel isn’t doing anything weird with forcing vsync, etc.

I’ve added RA as a profile and set it to application-controlled, made no difference.